They broke me He healed me
by Wraithdarte
Summary: A/U fic. Kate is taken by an off shoot of Hugh D'Ambrey's boys, and they break her. Can Curran heal the soul that is left in tatters? There is alot of explicits. Kate is very brutally raped and tortured, and I don't want to make any bones about that. If it bothers you, please, don't read it. Just know that Curran makes big hero noises, and is awesome.
1. Chapter 1

Taken

"No!" I screamed. Bursting out of hiding, I pushed myself through the gang of dirty Mercs toward Elnfad. "Take me instead."

He raked his gaze over me, and smirked. "I knew you'd come around, Daniels. You're inability not to martyr yourself is legendary."

"Release her. She's just a girl. Let her go, and you can have me. I won't fight you. You know I'm the match of every one of your men. You know I can kill every one of them, and sleep well at night. Let her go and I won't."

"Touching speech," Elnfad mused as little Sarah screamed for me to run, to get out. We both ignored her. He pretended to think it over, then shoved her away from himself. "Done."

"Swear it." I demanded.

He rolled his eyes at me, but complied. "Neither me, nor mine, shall touch nor harm in anyway, your little Were-bitch. I swear by blood and bone. "

I let down my wards, and immediately Elnfad's men were on me, taking my weapons and binding me tight. I was glad I had decided to leave Slayer at the Keep. At least none of these jackass' would have their hands on my baby.

"Kate, you mustn't." Sarah moaned. "Fight!"

"Run, Sarah." I told her. "Don't stop until you get home."

"Kate-"

"GO!" I shouted at her, putting all of the Alpha voice that Curran had lent me behind it. With the double timbre of my tone chasing her, she fled, and none of the Mercs moved to touch her.

"Take our lovely guest downstairs, and drain her before the magic shifts again. I'll be down presently." Elnfad ordered.

His men dragged me down cold stone steps and into a wide stone room at the end of the hallway. Pushing me before them, they slammed shut the heavy bars of the door. There were two more waiting for me inside the cell; they shoved an orb into my bound hands before I could even blink. It glowed and pulsed as it sucked the magic out of me. I fell to the floor and shuddered, my entire body quaking with the LACK screaming through me. The orb rolled from my nerveless fingers, and was gathered up by one of the men, a lanky guy with straw blonde hair. He set it up on a shelf built into the stone. "Shouldn't we take it out?" The other man asked nervously. Fancy that. I had a reputation.

"If we do, she'll die. Creature like her? Made of magic. If hers is taken too far away from her, she'll cease to exist. The master wants her around for awhile yet, so the orb stays where it is."

Ha. Not true. I was made of magic-they couldn't take it all from me. As soon as the magic fell and rose again, that nasty little ball would break, and my magic would come streaming back into me. Slowly, painfully, but back it would come. And I always had tricks up my sleeves. Right now, however? The loss of my magic left me kitten-weak, and sick with it.

The blonde with all the knowledge was untying me. He manhandled me around, cursing at my weight. I yelped as he dropped my head against the stones, and he laughed and patted my shoulder.

"That little bump is the least you'll get today, Daniels. This is gonna be so very much fun. More so for me, of course, but we must all make our sacrifices."

"Kate."

"What?" I had flummoxed him.

"My name is Kate. If your going to be torturing me, we might as well be on a first name basis."

Blondie threw his head back and howled with laughter. "Oh, but you're a nasty one! I'd hate to switch places with you. I bet you could make me scream for years."

"Decades." I smiled pleasantly up at him.

He stroked my hair, laughing a bit, then pulled out his knife. "Get over here and help me," he ordered the other man, a guy just as lanky, but brunette and far more nervous. "Hold her hands."

Blondie directed him, then started cutting away my jeans. I could guess where this was going.

"Rape? Really? I expected Elnfad to be a little more inventive."

Blondie glanced up at me, a nasty little smirk in his eyes, but said nothing. I was bare to the waist, and vulnerable to his view. He traced silver scars that spread across my thighs and belly. "I'd say you are no stranger to this game."

I was silent as his knife bit into my cotton t-shirt, baring me further, and finally my bra. By now, I was gaining back my strength, and I kicked out at his head. Blondie caught my foot and pushed it away. The grip on my wrists tightened and Blondie punched me in the mouth. He straddled me, dropped his knife, and backhanded me hard enough that I saw stars.

"Just a moment." Elnfad strolled into the cell, something-a syringe-twirling in his fingers. "You'll want this, boyo." He handed the syringe to Blondie, who twirled it through his own fingers before stabbing it cruelly into my neck, grinning just as cruelly, blue eyes alight with malice. He got off me, and slapped a pair of manacles on my wrists. He hauled me to my feet, and looped the chain of the manacles around a hook descending from the ceiling.

"Come on, Charlie. Lets go find us some toys."

The other man followed him out of the room. They left me alone in the room with Elnfad.

"I know what you are thinking, Katherine Daniels. But I'm not actually in charge. If I was, I'd kill you outright. I don't envy you the next weeks of your life, but the boy wants to play."

As I watched, he pulled a thick glass bottle from the pocket of his overcoat ( an overcoat? In Savannah? ) and took a sip.

"What did he put inside me?"

"The boy injected you with an Unseelie drug, used in sexual torture. He is going to rape you, and your body will beg for it. You mind will be your own, living every second, and you will hate it. You will rage, try to fight it, but your body will only become more aroused. You cannot stop yourself from participating."

He offered me the bottle, and I smelled Fey whiskey. I eyed him, then accepted when he held it to my lips. I drained it, then thanked whatever tiny gods watched me when he pulled another from his pocket and held out to me. I was almost instantly lightheaded as the potent whiskey sang its way through my veins.

I could feel the drug starting to work. My nipples hardened, and my body began to shake with heat and need. My insides grew liquid and slick as I tried to fight the arousal and failed.

I drank the rest of the bottle that Elnfad held to my lips and he mercifully paid no heed to the tears running down my cheeks. I sagged against my chains, head spinning with alcohol, body betraying me despite the screaming in my head.

Elnfad gazed at me with wistful eyes.

"If I were even 10 years younger…" he mused longingly as he traced one of my breasts. My breath grew ragged at the sensation of his callouses dragging on my nipple. Then he turned on a heel, and was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Broken

The hard liquor coursed through my system with the Fey drug. I grew more and more sexually aroused, and angrier with each second. I sniffed the air. The magic was still in control of the world, not technology, and that gave me ideas.

There was one trick still left that I had the strength and focus for: an elderly lady's dying gift to me.

"Only use it for protection, or as your own gift to another. Never for harm." She had warned me thusly with her dying breaths.

_who the hell still said 'thusly'?_

It was time now. If I ever needed my gift, it was now. Steeling myself for whatever consequences came, I opened my mouth and mind, and began to sing.

She had been a Siren. She'd had no children, and I'd stopped the Order from killing her, back when I'd still had a tiny bit of influence. On her deathbed, she'd given me her gift. I carried the pure soul of a Siren, and with it, could influence magic in a small manner. I could enthrall, for a short time, anyone who heard me-but only for as long as my concentration lasted. If I wavered even a bit, the thrall would be broken, and I would be screwed. All I could do was try to buy time, try to get them to wait until I could fight the Unseelie drug. If I failed…

_no. try. don't think, just try._

I carried the soul of a Siren, and that was power that blonde bastard could not strip from me.

"_In a neat little town they call Belfast,_

_Apprenticed to trade I was bound…"_

I began the opening lines to The Black Velvet Band as Blondie and Charlie came back into the room. They stood there, and looked at me, soundless, motionless. I had them solidly under my thrall as I let my voice mingle with magic and sent it slipping through the air, weaving over, under, and around their minds, effectively trapping them solidly in my spell. I didn't know how long I could maintain it, how long I could keep my mind focused. The drugs were working ever faster, instead of spinning out of my system like other drugs did. My skin was hot, my breasts grew tight and heavy, and my sex was throbbing.

I got through the song, and had started "Carry On, Wayward Son", when the magic crashed, leaving me helpless. It was enough to crack my concentration and send my spell skittering to an end, releasing the men.

Blondie started laughing. "Oh, good on you!"

Tears fell from my eyes at his happy laughter.

"That was a masterful try, Kate, my lass, it really was! You really are as powerful as they say. But now we shall see if you are _everything_ they say you are."

Charlie knelt at my feet, presumably to secure them, but I was having none of it. Trusting my weight to my manacles and the hook in the ceiling, I lashed out with my feet and caught him across the jaw. When he stumbled to my left,I hooked my heel around jaw and neck, pulling him in close to my body. Anchoring my feet in a more secure manner about his neck and windpipe, and my other leg across his body, holding him in place. Blondie clapped lightly as Charlie struggled in my hold.

"Beautiful, love. That was gorgeous."

Charlie's struggles began to weaken and so did my hold as our position stimulated the heat in my core.

"I'm going to kill him." I warned.

"Go ahead." He gestured expansively. "I have a dozen more just like him. If you insist on his demise, I suggest you do so quickly. I estimate about a minute more before you start humping the poor man like a bitch in heat."

I stared at him, trying to call his bluff, but I could feel my body trying to do exactly as he said, literally trembling with need.

I released Charlie, sobbing, gasping out curses in 17 languages while Charlie struggled to breath. Blondie knelt and secured my ankles. As I wept, I was completely vulnerable to him and his every touch was painful pleasure. He trailed his fingers up my leg and inner thigh and watched me shake. Heat pooled inside me even as I cursed his birth and heritage. He trailed his fingers, and then flicked one fingertip against my clitoris, and I came so violently I screamed with pain. There was no pleasure in the orgasm, no release and subsequent relaxation of muscles. It was only fire, all pain. He laughed as I screamed, and rose to his feet in front of me. "I'll kill you!" I gasped. "Mark me now-" my vision went red as I glared at him through bleeding eyes. "When I am free, I will end you, and I will not grant you the pleasure of a painful death. It will be quick and clean and honorless and they will find your body floating in the river, facedown and faceless. None will weep over your watery grate save those all buried by me." My voice and speech grew more archaic as I spoke and took on the double timbre of prophecy

He smiled indulgently, and caressed my cheek. "I am sure that this is truth. Until then…" He leaned in and kissed me softly, almost lovingly, and I cursed myself for responding to it. He withdrew his lips from mine, and licked the bloody tears from my cheeks and neck. It aroused me again until I was once more trembling under his ministrations. He laughed again, and drew away. "Charlie-boy! All recovered?"

Charlie regained his feet and looked upon me with blatent hatred. "Very much so, sir."

"Good man. Now. Would you like to be inside, or out, her first time?"

"Out, sir."

"Very well, then. Choose your instrument, and I'll start some music for her to sing to."

"As you say, my lord."

Very soon, both men were standing before me, totally naked, totally erect and one of Bach's pieces was being played on a portable player. I quailed as Charlie selected a small blow-torch from the table and they both advanced on me. I snarled in fury and struggled with my chains when Blondie gripped my hips. He speared into me and even as I fought to get away, my traitor body rewarded him with another instantaneous and painful orgasm. I spat in his face, and then had no breath for cursing-I used it on screaming when that blow-torch followed the curve of my hip and up my spine.

I lost count of the ways they violated me. They took turns, one fucking me, the other burning or cutting or whipping or or and or…

They used hot knives, and solid metal bars to hit me. They burned me with fire and with ice. They pushed little bits of glass into me, then beat me again, all the while taking me in ways so horrific, governments would execute over it.

I don't know what they did to me after I lost consciousness.

When I woke, I was sagging in my chains without hope or struggle left in me. We all three were covered in sweat, cum, and my blood.

"What do you think?" Blondie was asking when I lifted my eyes to them. "The water room next?"

"Could be interesting, sir."

Blondie let out a high-pitched giggle. "Oh, this is such fun. She is so responsive, even now. And look at her eyes! Still glowing red with her flame. She won't break for a long time yet."

They laughed uproariously, and it galled me to stand there, naked, helpless and bleeding while they laughed at me, so I lunged at them, thinking that if I jerked so hard as to break my wrists, I could get out and kill them-with my teeth, if needs must!

They laughed harder at my coughing snarl.

They sobered a bit, though, when a shattering "BOOM" shook the very foundations of the bunker we were in.

"Best go see who's knocking at your door," I taunted.

Blondie winked at me. "Why don't we?"

He threw an arm around Charlie's shoulder and they swaggered out of the room. They left the door wide open, the fucking bastards. Seething, I pulled, struggled, Fought against my hated chains. I wanted that door!

But all too soon, my strength left me and I dropped, caught by those chains, into a dead faint.

I woke when a door slammed. I looked up in time to see..._Curran_? being dragged past me, out cold. "NO!" I screamed, and it reverberated through the dungeon like the shrieking wail of a banshee.

What seemed like years later, Charlie came strolling into the room.

"Time to move, bitch." He sneered at me. He undid the manacles on my ankles, and then my wrists. The magic came crashing back as he unlocked the last cuff. I grabbed his hand and sucked all of the life-energy out of him-something I'd promised Voron I'd never do. He dropped dead to the floor, and I felt no remorse. His strength flooded into me, healing me a little, and giving me enough energy to stagger out of my cell. I stopped to drag on Blondie's leather duster to cover myself. I cried out as it connected with my abused flesh. I stumbled out of the room and down the hall that I had seen Curran disappear down. _What was he doing here? How had he been captured? Didn't the man have any sense?_ These, and other questions plagued me as I made my laborious way down the hall, peering into every small stone cell until I found the one they stashed him in. There were two men bent over him when I staggered inside. Before they could blink, I'd grabbed hold of some piece of flesh, and drained their energy, sucking them dry in an attempt to replace some of the life currently streaming out of my tattered body through open wounds. I sighed as staying awake got a little easier.

I knelt by Curran, wondering why he wasn't up and snarling and smashing things. then I saw the silver needle in his neck, attached to a bag of liquid drugs. Well, fuck. Someone found a way to conk out the Beast Lord, and keep him out. If I ever got out of this, I'd give it a try. I pulled the toxic metal out of his neck, then whispered a little apology as I leaked out a little of his strength, just enough to hoist him up into a fireman's carry, and lurch out of the room. I tried to reach his mind with mine, and see how bad they had him drugged.

..._Kate?..._

_Indeed, your Furriness. Don't worry. I'll get you out. _

_...you're hurt. I can smell it. And...they raped you!?_

His mental tone was angry and full of Alpha rage, but still gentle in my head.

_They hurt me in more ways than I have time to tell you. Let's just get out of here._

_Take my strength._

_I already borrowed some. _I staggered and almost fell. There was a burning pain in my everywhere, and I couldn't hardly think and walk at the same time.

_You need more. _He insisted. He shoved, and strength burst through me and his voice and pressure vanished from my mind. The dumbass had almost literally knocked himself out. The drug had done all but shut down his mind, and then he goes and finishes the job. Sweet hells.

I bore him up several sets of stairs, trying to ignore the blood seeping from...everywhere. my arms and legs, my back and ch_estandbellyand_...lower…

Every step was fire and agony.

Thankfully, I didn't meet anyone on my way up the stairs. I would have been able to do nothing but bleed on them. My mind was flagging. Soon I wouldn't be able to move anymore. Then, there was a door. I opened it to find outside, and a Pack of raging shapeshifters trying to get in to rescue their Dear and Fuzzy Lord.

"HEY!" I screamed to bring us the the attention of the frenzied rage-monsters. The nearest warriors looked at me, and I handed them Curran, then backed off. The last thing I needed was for them to think *I* had hurt him. With their attention on him, I slipped away, and stumbled in a vaguely straight line until I found a horse drawn cab, and crawled in. "Take me to 47 Maple Lane."

I named my-Greg's-apartment in the city. The horse lurched off, leaving the still-howling shifters behind me.


	3. Chapter 3

Found

"Got money on ya, girlie?" The driver growled at me from the front of the cab as I hauled myself in.

"You may follow me into my home to collect your fee." I rasped as formally as I could. "You'll get your money, and an extra 20 if you get me there quickly."

"Fair enough." The promise of extra money was enough to get him to whip up his horses and let the cab lurch forward.

He pulled to a stop what seemed like hours later, but was probably only a few minutes. Once out of the bunker, I had recognized my surroundings somewhat, and we hadn't been that far from the apartment.

The old driver hopped down from where he perched in a crow-like fashion to the ground outside the cab, and pulled open the door. "Let's along, then miss. Are you sure this is where you want to be?" He asked as he helped me down. "There's a med clinic not far from here." I knew that, and no matter how broken I was when I dragged myself home, I never went there. I looked down at myself. Was I really that bad?

The big overcoat hid most of me, and the worst of my injuries, but it stopped at mid-calf, and my legs were a nasty sight, bruised and leaking blood.

Yeah...I really looked that bad.

"I'll be fine." I rasped. "I just need a shower and a meal." I tried to reassure him. "If you would be so kind as to lend me your arm?"

The cabbie helped me stagger to the door and up the stairs of my apartment. I looked back once, and saw the bloody footprints I was leaving. I need to clean that. If anyone got ahold of my blood...But I couldn't fathom a way to make myself care enough to turn back.

I touched the door. "Open." I asked my wards. The lock clicked and the door swung inward on its hinges. I led the cabbie to the kitchen where I pulled a fifty from the wallet lying on the counter.

"You sure you're gonna-"

I flicked my hand in a dismissive gesture, meant to tell him to get out, and just like that, he was gone. No walking, no doors, nothing. Just gone. Well, slap my ass and call me Shirley. That hadn't ever happened before. I tried to work up the energy to care...but I was so tired. I picked up a towel lying next to my wallet on the counter and sat on the floor with every intention of wiping off some of the blood, then getting up to take a shower, but I hurt so bad, and just needed a second to…

I woke screaming, with a roaring in my ears, and a splitting pain coursing through every part of my being, every vein in my body on fire with it. I writhed on the floor, in a puddle of my own blood, without the strength or wherewithal to even lift my head to locate where my new attack was coming from. The roaring suddenly ceased, and my kitchen door burst open in a shower of shards, little splinters flying everywhere. Curran stepped through the wrecked door, head moving back and forth, and a gibber lunatic in the back of my brain wondered if he was trying to sniff me out. But, I now knew why I hurt so badly. Curran had found it necessary to break my wards. All of them. The lunatic in my head shrieked at him: _ya big dumbass! do you KNOW how much that is not fucking okay?_

I wanted nothing more than to be dead right now. Gods, I hurt. I couldn't even cry. I lay there, shuddering, and watched as Curran moved to my side. He knelt beside me, and took my hand. "Hey, asskicker." He whispered, and the lunatic remarked upon how funny it was that there were tears in my favorite monster's eyes.

He looked at me, gold rolling over his wet, shiny eyes. Curran didn't do stupid shit like that. _Stop it!_ I wanted to scream. He wasn't allowed to cry.

He gently peeled the coat away from my body and gazed down at my tattered, shattered body. "I'm so sorry."

I screamed again, and then fainted when he lifted me, and bore me towards the door. My last thought was the lunatic telling me that no-one used the word _bore_ anymore.

_**Flash. Searing pain.**_

_**Flash. Pain, and Curran.**_

_**Flash. Ever present pain. Doolittle and Curran, standing over me.**_

"_**...extensive injuries...never seen...Brutality…"**_

"_**Before he died, he told me that she never broke."**_

_**Flash. Bleeding again. Burning. Hands bound. Was I back there?**_

_**I screamed. I screamed, and Blondie laughed. I screamed. Or tried to.**_

_**Pain.**_

_**Pain.**_

_**Pain.**_

_**Flash.**_

I awoke, thinking I was dreaming again. There was white everywhere. Ohh but I hurt. I tried to lift a hand to my head, but found that both my hands were bound above my head. I was laying belly-down on a bed and I was tied down I couldn't move oh gods I was still there oh gods-

"No! Kate!" Big hands grasped me, stroked my hair. "Hey, now, asskicker. Your safe, Kate. I promise, you're safe."

I knew those hands, knew that voice. "Curran!" I shrieked, fighting harder. Where was he? Had to get him out had to get out before they hurt him I couldn't let them hurt hi-

"Hey, hey. I'm here. Right here." Big hands, lion's voice soothed. "They didn't touch me. They didn't hurt me. You got us out. You saved me."  
"Curran…" I stopped screaming, stopped struggling. My voice was a whimper.  
"I'm here, Kate. Right here."

"My hands. Please, my hands. I can't. Please. I'll be good I swear I willpleaseyoudontneedto-"  
"Oh, gods, baby." Big hands ripped apart medical cuffs that bound me to the bedpost.

"Curran?" Maybe it really was him. Maybe…?

"I'm here. Look, see?"

And there he was. Tawny-blond hair framing a square jaw, and teasing above grey-blue eyes like tempered steel. I reached, or tried to, wanting to feel, to hold and touch. Wanting him to be real. He took my hand in his. "I'm not leaving, Kate. I promise."  
"Curran." The name was a sob now. "They hurt me." I whispered it, I wept it.

"Oh, gods, Kate." He said again. His voice was thick, and his hand on my hair was gentle. "I know. I know they hurt you."

"Please-" I clutched at him. "Please." I couldn't. I couldn't. Just- "please."

"I know, Kate. I know. Here, now, sweetheart." He moved around me, and lay on the bed behind me, holding me gently against himself. He held me as I sobbed myself back into oblivion.


	4. Chapter 4

**Big loves to Jaz, for pushing me for this chapter from Curran's POV. All the rest of ya'lls? I know that Curran never told stories, but hey-it's fan fic, right? Tell me what you thought, kay?**

Curran.

I woke up, groggy and pissed off. I knew by scent and sight and hearing that I was home, at the Keep, and that Kate was not. She got me out, and made sure I was cared for, but no-one cared for her. If they had, I'd be able to smell her in my Keep, be able to taste the magic in her blood. I remembered the scent of her body ripped to shreds, remembered the feel of the magic slowly leaking back into. I could still taste her fear, and hurt, still smell another man's essence covering her. That alone would be enough for me to start ripping heads off, but the knowledge that it had not been by her consent-the fury built up inside me until I had no choice but to release it. I remembered, and I came off the bed with a roar that shook the Keep in it's solid stone foundations. Fur sheathed my arms, and claws shot from hands turned into claws.

For all her stubborn ass-brained denials, Kate Daniels was my Mate, the one woman destined to be The Beast Lord's Consort. She was MINE!

I roared again, and stalked to the door, still partially lion-shaped. It burst into shatters when I slammed into it. Something in the back of my mind reminded me that five-inch thick solid oaken doors were not cheap, but I shoved the nattering, Kate-shaped voice out of my head, and barely acknowledged Jim and Derek as they fell into step with me. They, aside from Andrea Nash, were Kate's best friends, and knew her the best.

"Where is she?" I snarled from a mouth that was a hairsbreadth from becoming a lion's muzzle.

"We don't know", Jim answered me, and I snarled with fury. "I didn't know that you had been extracted until the fight was over. The ones who took you from Kate didn't know her by sight or scent, and so didn't really bother with her. I had the wolves and the boudas go looking for her scent after we took their leaders. We lost her scent not one hundred feet from the bunker. I was just about to send the boy to her apartment."

"Why hadn't you already DONE SO?!" My Head of Intelligence was not endearing himself to me.

"We were waiting for you." Derek's coughing growl rasped out from shredded vocal cords.

"It's only been ten minutes since we got you home."

I was not mollified. "Derek, go to her home outside of the city and check if she's there. I'll go to her apartment. Jim-go to the Order. They know you, and might let you talk to Nash. See if she's heard anything."

They didn't say a word, just stalked off in opposite directions to carry out my orders. I could smell how close Derek was to shifting into wolf-form. He loved Kate as much as I did, though he'd never say it. He looked up to her, worshiped her like an older, crazy-assed sister.

I shifted to full Lion form as soon as I cleared the front doors. I made an impressive lion, standing 8 feet high at the shoulder, and 9 from nose to flank. Muscles bunched and spread as I took off at a dead run, heading with everything I had to the apartment Kate had inherited from her guardian. It was in the inner city, an hour's drive from the Keep. At this pace, I'd be there in 10 minutes.

I shifted from lion to mostly human bare seconds before I hit the door to her building. I knew she was here. I could smell her power. More to the point, I could smell her blood. I could hear the stuttering thump of her heartbeat as it fought to take another step.

I was blocked at her door by those thrice-fucked wards of hers. I had no choice but to break them. I could HEAR her DYING! I pushed through the doorway through the wall of magic, fighting against the unseen force trying to keep me out. It suddenly snapped, propelling me into her living room. I surged forward, smashing through the closed kitchen door. I whipped my head back and forth, looking for her. I saw her then. She was lying on the floor by the cabinets, in a slowly widening puddle of her own blood. She was screaming. I was at her side, taking her hand, as she opened her eyes, pain bright in them. "Hey, asskicker." I said softly.

She just looked at me, just stared. Tears burned my eyes, and I trembled with the need to change. "I am so sorry." As gentle as I tried to be when lifting her, she screamed again, and I felt her sag in my arms. I blessed whatever tiny gods watched her that she would be out for our trip back. It would be more pain than I wished to cause her. The cries she let out a few minutes ago wrenched the soul out of me, and I could not bear to cause her that kind of pain.

She lapsed in and out of consciousness as Doolittle worked on her. I heard her screaming from in the basement, where we were keeping the prisoners we took from the bunker. I was there looking for the men who tortured her.

I stopped at a loup cage that held a tall man with blonde hair. He smiled at me from in between the bars of the cage.

"You didn't even wash her blood off."

His grin grew wider at my quiet words. Had Kate been there, she would have told him to fear the lion when his growl isn't heard.

"She was the most fun I've ever had." He laughed. "You know-no matter what I did to her, she just looked at me with those scary, gorgeous eyes." Some would say the man was gleeful. I'm more simple. He was a sick, twisted son of a bitch, and needed to be put down harder than a wolf gone loup.

"Just to add to my fun, she's the sweetest piece of a-"

I ripped the door off the loup cage, then twisted his head right off his shoulders. Derek stepped into the room. "Dump this shit into the river." I told him. I felt the weight of prophecy shift from my shoulders to his. Kate must have told the bastard of his death, and it was on us to fulfil it. Dammit, I hated when she did that. It didn't matter. I'd fulfil every prophecy on the books to take the last 4 days away from Kate.

I went upstairs and took a hurried shower, then went back to the infirmary where Doolittle was working on Kate.

He was washing his hands in a stainless steel sink set deep into the wall. Kate was lying facedown on a bed, covered to her shoulders in a white sheet spotted in places with a darkening red.

"How is she?" I asked him, my heart pounding in worry for her. Anyone of my people with half the sense the gods gave farm sheep would be able to hear my heartbeat, smell the worry, and know exactly why. That should have worried me. It was a tangible weakness, and weakness' got a Shifter killed. Especially the Beast Lord. I wasn't worried though. My people knew me. They knew that I **had** no weakness'. They also knew that I had Claimed Kate as my Mate. She hadn't acknowledged it, but by the eyes of any Shifter, until she denied me, she was mine.

Doolittle sighed. "She has extensive injuries covering every part of her body, plus internal injuries. I have never seen this kind of brutality outside of loupism. For any of us, we'd spend some time in a bacta tank, a few days of rest, and we'd be as good as new. Kate is human, and-"

She screamed from her table, and fought to be free of the bed, the sheet, fought to get up. I was at her side in fractions of a second, wrapping my arms around her, holding her to the table. "Kate!" I murmured. "Baby. Hey, sweetheart. Hush, now. Hey." She quieted, barely, and Doolittle was right behind me with a syringe to slip into her arm. She quieted, and then stilled as the drugs ran through her system.

"That's the third time I have had to dose her. It will only last so long with her metabolism. She processes intoxicants so quickly that if I give her much more, it'll get dangerous."

"Get me your medical cuffs."

I knelt beside her bed, inhaling her scent. It was mingled with that of anesthetic, blood, and magic. Magic has it's own, distinctive smell. Every Shifter knows when the tech falls and magic holds the world in sway. That same scent was woven into her blood, as much a part of her as was her bones, or DNA. It was sifting into her, into her skin, hair, ears, mouth, nose...It was as if someone had sucked the power out of her, and it was slowly filtering back in. I could almost smell the color and shape of her distinctive power, and it was heady stuff.

"Do you need to do aught else to her right now?" I asked as I cuffed her hands above her head to the posts of the bed.

"Not at the present. The longer she sleeps, of course, the better, but for now…"

"Then get out."

Doolittle patted my shoulder as he passed behind me to the door. The grandfatherly old Honey Badger was the only one permitted even a bit to be so informal with me. Him, and Macon. My adopted father did not believe in informality, though. Bears are notoriously formal.

I laid my head on the hard medical bed next to her hip, hiding my face in the curve of her waist. I may have slept. Certainly I was still there when she awoke.

My only clue that something was wrong was when her breath hissed through her teeth, and she started freaking out. She jerked at the cuffs, making the most heartbreaking mewling sound as she tried to get free. "No! Kate." I stroked her hair, trying to sooth her. "Hey, now, asskicker. Your safe, Kate. I promise, you're safe."

Instead of soothing her, this seemed to scare her even more. She screamed my name, which, in a different circumstance, would have thrilled me to my bones, and fought harder.

"I have to get him out. I have to get him out. If they hurt him-I can't let them hurt him!" She screamed my name again, and I smelled blood as she tore open her wounds.

"Hey, hey. I'm here. Right here. They didn't touch me. They didn't hurt me. You got us out. You saved me." She stilled a bit, and this time, my name was a plea on her lips.

"I'm here, Kate. Right here."

"My hands. Please, my hands. I can't. Please. I'll be good I swear I willpleaseyoudontneedto-"  
"Oh, gods, baby." I tore at her cuffs, ripped them off. She thought she was still in that cell, and it ripped at my heart.

She whispered my name. "I'm here, baby, see? I'm right here."

I took her hand when she tried to reach for me. "I'm not going anywhere, Kate. I promise."

She started weeping. I wished that I had taken longer to kill that fuck blonde bastard. "They hurt me." She sobbed, and my heart broke. This woman was the toughest, meanest, most stubborn human ever born, and I loved her. The sight of the only female, the only human who had a prayer at taking me in a fair fight, laying broken on a hospital bed...it killed me surer than silver.

"Please." She begged me. "Please."

I knew instinctively what she wanted. What I would have wanted, had I been in her place.

I rounded her bed, and lay behind her. I drew her into my arms, and let her cry until she slept again. If my own eyes grew wet? There was no-one to know.


	5. Chapter 5

Woken

I slept, and I woke, on a mindless cycle. I have no idea how many days. I woke, and Curran was there, holding my hand or stroking my hair. If I was lucid for long enough, he fed me soup.

If I was even kind of in a sane place, I wouldn't have considered letting him feed me. For Shifters, feeding another person meant declaring yourself their protector, and a declaration of possession. _My_ brother. _My_ sister, friend, spouse. _My_ Packmate. By feeding me, Curran declared me his to every one of his subjects. Unless I made it abundantly clear to every single Shifter under his care that I wanted _none_ of him, we were basically handfasted. All I had to do was publicly accept him, and we'd be basically married.

It was also well-known that I damn sure didn't want anything to do with the Pack's fucked-up politics. I shouldn't let him feed me-most days, I wasn't even sure I _liked_ him, and I drove him crazy.

But I had always trusted him. I had been abused, I was hurting, and I wanted to feel safe. I trusted Curran, and didn't at this particular moment, care about the damned politics.

Doolittle was healing me with magic. He was the best medmage I had ever heard of, and was the self proclaimed healer of all things Pack and Wild.

We all knew, especially me, that I should be much better extremely quickly. All the same, the first time I woke up and stayed that way, coherent and alert, was three days after Curran had broken my apartment to get to me. I was healing almost as slowly as if there was no magic. My own magic usually would have already done Doolittle's job for him, but it was still trickling back to me after Blondie had stolen it from me. I realized, upon considering, that I had never learned his name. How odd, not to know the name of the man who left you broken.

Everytime I closed my eyes, I saw them. Every time I woke, I thought I was still there. Sometimes, I screamed myself awake.

I may have held together in that little stone room, but now that I was safe, and in a place I trusted, I broke with the slightest of provocations.

Over the next several days, I healed. Or tried too. I slept, woke, drank the soup Curran handed me in near silence. The first time the Beast Lord tried to make conversation, I couldn't meet his eyes. He finally gave up, and rose to leave. I grabbed his hand, and when he turned back to look at me, I begged him not to leave me alone. Alpha gold rolled over his eyes, and in them I saw pity, and pain. He came back and settled on the bed next to me, and curved his arm around my body. I fell asleep with him holding me. After that, I was never alone. If Curran was not in the room, then Derek would be, or Jim, and Doolittle was always in easy reach. One of them would sit in a chair next to my bed and read, or talk. About nothing. Jim would tell about the problems he had keeping the boudha clan out of trouble, and Derek would tell about Jim's veins popping everywhere when someone pulled pranks on the paranoid Were-Jaguar. Curran's low rumble told of the hot-headed situations that needed diffusing in his calm, low, Alpha voice, asking my opinions, and not caring that I couldn't answer him. And I couldn't. I couldn't open my mouth and answer back. My perpetual snark seemed lost, and I just couldn't get up the energy to interact with my friends. They were all very gentle about it, but I could tell that they were worried. The first thing I said without prompting, on my own, was to ask how long they had held me. "Three days." Curran answered me, with death in his eyes.

The look of relief in Curran's face when I started talking again was almost comical...but then the other shoe dropped.

One day, nearabouts a week after my 'rescue', I was sitting up, reading while my head allowed me to do so. Headaches came on hard and fast if I was upright for too long. Doolittle said that they would fade, but for now I had to be careful.

I was distracted from my book by the sound of a murmured argument in the next room. I could tell that the conversants were the good Doctor himself, and His Great Lord and Fuzziness. The two beings that the Keep's residents _least_ wanted to cross, for varying reasons, and they were going head to head. Quietly. Since the location was where it was, I could only that I was the topic of the discussion. I placed my finger as a bookmark, closed my eyes, and set my ears to spying. To make sense of the little I heard was mostly beyond my ken. It sounded like they were arguing over whether or not to tell me...something. I waited for them, patiently as I could, as long as I could-but patience is not something I could be accused of having in abundant amounts.

"Doctor?" I spoke in a normal tone, as if he were right there next to me. With the supernatural hearing of the Shifters, they would have no trouble hearing me. And within my next breath, Curran and Doolittle were stepping into my room. My eyes flicked between them. "What ever you two are trying not to tell me is going to hurt. I can smell it. The whispering...it just scares me more." I laid aside my book. "Please...would you just…?" And that was the last of my bravado. I couldn't look them in the eyes anymore.

Doolittle took off his spectacles and polished them with a kerchief he pulled from his pocket as he met my gaze with the deepest of concern in his eyes.

"It is very, very personal, and we don't know quite how to break it to you. Our Dread Lord cares for you very deeply", here, Doolittle ignored the rumble that came from deep within Curran's chest, and continued. "And he would take care in the telling. However, I would not. I am a doctor, however so much as I care for you as well, and can give it cleanly. Or-"

"Doolittle." I stopped him. I stretched out a hand, and Curran took it in his, coming in close to me and stroking my hair with his other hand. I felt a bit of my old steel run through my bones, and my eyes went hard as I looked back to Doolittle. "Just tell me."

The old Were-Badger sighed, and replaced his spectacles. "Very well. You well know that during your captivity you were repeatedly raped. At least once, with a long, inanimate object that was heated far past a burning point. I tried to repair the damage, Kate, but I am truly sorry to inform you that the damage sustained to your womb was very severe. I am sorry, dear, but you will never be able to have children."

He kept talking, but I only heard "never have children…" I wouldn't have been a great mom. I made a terrible crazy aunt, and crazy was my thing. But I had always wanted kids. A baby.

There was a high keening coming from somewhere. It was wild, and lonesome, and hurt deep in my chest. It was only after long seconds that I realised that it was coming from me.

In weak moments, I had imagined having Curran's child. Bearing a son, or daughter, after we defeated my father. I had imagined what the baby would look like, grow up into. I had imagined a laughing child with steely grey eyes flecked with gold. I would never see that. I would never look into my son's eyes and see Curran there. Never argue with a daughter every bit as stubborn as I was.

"Never…"

The keening wail grew louder, and sounded of a night with no stars, frozen and bitter. How could that be coming from me?

The I was being scooped up and held. It was painful as cloth rubbed against cuts and burns, but I was being cradled in arms I had only ever dreamt of. It didn't help. I fought him. I wanted to die. I fought harder when I felt the needle sting my arm. Slowly, the screaming faded and my world once again went black.


	6. Chapter 6

**First, allow me to say-I had no idea that this was going to go this far. I had thought that it would be a nice little one-shot for my first fic. Yeah...ha. **

**Big loves to JazMitch for support and none-too-gentle nudges. A gr`a, mo chroi, my sister.**

**Lyrics Are Not Mine. From Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills, Dragonforce's Evening Star,**

Curran.

Children are the most precious resource of the Pack. We have so few of them. So few of our women can carry a child to term, because of the changes our bodies go through when we shift. It is in our nature to shift to our animal form frequently. It is another part of our soul which should not be denied. But to shift almost inevitably causes a woman to lose her child. And of the children who made it to birth, we lost even more of them to loupism during puberty.

Telling one of us that we can't have children causes pain, but is not totally unexpected. It was even less unexpected for Kate. She couldn't give Roland something to use against her. It was 'bad enough' that she had friends-and whatever we were to each other. But all the same.

All I knew was that she was mine, and no damn Tower-Builder was going to take her from me, even in spirit. Before we killed them, some of the prisoners had confessed to working for Roland's right hand man, Hugh d'Ambrey. Which meant that one, the other, or both of them knew about the abuse she had suffered.

Which meant only one thing to me.

War.

I was done leaving her in the little room of our hospital. Careful of her wounds, I lifted her and carried her up to my apartment on the top floor of the Keep. I lay her down on my bed, and curled next to her. When I was with her was the only time I'd slept in the last weeks-when I was alone, sleep evaded me for worry of my usually cantankerous warrior. She was starting to heal quickly now, and Doolittle said that she'd be all but good as new. I figured that meant she could have some privacy from the ears of the rest of my people, and there was no place better secured and soundproofed than my room. I buried my face in her hair, and closed my eyes.

_**Run to the hills - run for your lives **_

_**Run to the hills - run for your lives **_

_**Soldier blue in the barren wastes **_

_**Hunting and killing's a game…**_

Rising

I clawed my way out of the black.

I wasn't in the medical room anymore, but in another, wider, richer room. I was wrapped in Curran's ams. They banded like steel across my chest, gentle, yet immovable, each of his hands holding one of my wrists, also held across my chest. I guess I'd been fighting while I was unconscious, and this was his alternative to tying my hands. I was grateful.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to him.

His hands tightened just a fraction on me, then released me entirely. "No," he spoke softly. "There should have been a better way to tell you."

"It would have hurt just the same." I said tonelessly. "I've always known that while my father lived, I couldn't pass my bloodline to a child. Even Julie, having her is risky, but a baby with my family's magic? I couldn't do that to a kid. But there was always that 'what if?' Now I don't even have that daydream."

His arms tightened, trying to comfort. I started crying again. It wasn't like before. I wasn't even actively crying. There were just...tears, leaking from my eyes. I closed them, and willed the world away.

_**I will see the glory rise**_

_**We'll be one tonight**_

_**Don't you shut your eyes in silence**_

_**Tonight gather near, come and live your fear**_

Soon after the news and my move, I was strong enough to be up and about, although I soon came to the conclusion that 'up and about' was mostly a bad idea.

I pulled myself out of Curran's rooms, and began meandering the halls. I was utterly unsurprised when Derek fell into step with me.  
"Hey, Kate." He growled. He'd had a beautiful voice, once. Now his words would always come out in this coughing snarl, no matter his mood or tonal inflections.

"Hey," I replied. We walked in silence for a while. Then,"Where you headed?" He asked me.

"In the basic direction of food. I mostly don't care."

"Okay."

"Curran set you to dogging my heels? Pun intended."

"Nope. He knew he didn't have to."

I rolled my eyes at this, and caught his grin out of the corner of my eye. And we meandered.

I sat down in the kitchen and started picking at the plate of sausage I'd been given. I was listless, but getting my badass back, slowly and surely. And yet I was still so stinking weak. I was still having flashbacks, and still waking up screaming. Curran kept me in his bed, wrapping me in his arms every night, and never touching me elsewhere. Hells, he even undressed me like a child every night without looking at me askance. It was out of character for him, from my experience. He usually got a huge kick out of teasing me with sex in his gaze, but he was stepping lightly, so to speak. Not pushing or ask-

_Blondie's hands pressed against my shoulders, kneading my skin between his hands as he moved inside me from behind. Charlie's knife traced lovingly over the skin of my neck, down my chest, carving a pattern across my breasts. Blood dripped like penny-tasting tears down the slope of my breasts, then his knife continued it's path down my belly. _

_I couldn't stand to take this anymore. I couldn't-I wouldn't! I was more than hurting now, my wrath awakened into a fire that warmed my frozen soul. I yanked, and the chains snapped! I was free! My fist plowed into Charlie's face, snapping his neck. He was dead before he touched the floor. I pivoted away from Blondie and whipped my foot into his face. I followed him to the floor, Charlie's knife grasped tight in my hand. My hand raised, poised to thrust into my tormentor. His blood was mine! Then my hand was grabbed from behind, and arms lifted me away from my revenge._

"_**No!**__" I howled. His death was MINE!_

"_**Kate, no! -**_

-"Kate, no!"

I came back to myself, grasped in Derek's arms, my knife hand in a stoney grip. At our feet was Raphael, Andrea's boyfriend.

"What?" I gasped. "What the hell?!"

Once we all calmed down, Derek informed me that Raphael had come to check on me for Andrea, who wasn't allowed at the Keep. Curran had everyone on lockdown-only Pack members in and out. He had come up behind me and grasped my shoulders.

"I've never seen a human move so fast!" Raphael said happily. He was a bouda, and they were crazy-assed little mothers who found the weirdest things hilarious. "No-one has ever managed to get the drop on me with a knife before!"

The Hyena-Alpha was positively gleeful.

I was glad one of us was.

As I said, it became quickly clear that "Out and About" was bad for the random Shifters walking the Keep's hallways. If ANYONE touched me, it immediately registered as an attack, and I was back in the cell. I woke up fighting against an opponent that wasn't really there, with Derek barely managing to keep me from hurting someone.

The fourth time I woke up with a knife in my hand (_how the hell did I keep getting ahold of one_?), it was Curran's golden eyes I saw. One word was all he'd needed to stop me in my tracks.

"Kate."

Calm eyes burned me, calm and unmoving hands grasped me.

"Help me." I whispered.

"It's okay, baby. It will be alright. Come with me, now." His voice was a stone standing in a storm. I let him take my hand and lead me upstairs. He gave me two pills and a glass of water. I looked blankly at the objects in my hands, then back up at him in confusion.  
"What?"

"Doolittle told me to give them to you if this happened. He said they'd help."

I looked at them consideringly, then decided I didn't particularly care what they were. I swallowed them, and sat on the bed. I looked up at Curran when he sat next to me on the oversized monstrosity. "I'm sorry."

Gold rolled over his eyes. "Don't you dare. Don't you fucking DARE to apologize for this. It isn't your fault."

I shook my head. "I can't control this, Curran. You of all know how valuable control is. The existence of your people depends on it. I need to...I don't even know. I don't really know what is happening. It's like anytime someone touches me, it sends me back. It scares me."

His hand came up to caress my neck. "So we find a way to fix your fear of being touched. We will find a way, Kate. I promise."

My world began to grow fuzzy, like I was really drunk. Everything seemed just a little too loose. "Doolittle drugged me, the bastard. I hate that."

My words were just a little slurry.

A half laugh came out of Curran. "The rest of us find it hilarious. You're adorable when you're stoned."

"There he is!" I said happily.

"Who?" Curran asked.

"Snarky Curran. He's been missing for awhile. Really Quiet Curran has been occupying the building lately. I was wondering if you were broke."

"Nope." He shifted to stand in front of me and take off my boots. "Just waiting till you were well enough to match wits with me."

"Hmm." I hummed, and swayed back and forth a bit. He shucked off my boots, and I watched him. Gods, he was beautiful. I had a flash of insight, and considered that I trusted him. Absolutely.

When he moved to pull my shirt off, our faces were right next to each other. I decided to take advantage of that, and kissed him. He was soft and steel, and tasted of a storm. I twined my arms around him, and his hands came to rest on my bare waist. He returned my kiss and my heart danced. Then, all too soon, he gently pulled away.

"Kate."

He obviously wanted me to explain myself. I could do that. I didn't like it, though.

"The last person who touched me…" I said, not meeting his gaze. "He hurt me. He raped me. They both did-at the same time, sometimes." This was the first time I said the words aloud. It hurt, and helped more than I thought it would.

"Charlie preferred sodomy. In his head, I think, he was fucking his boss, not me…

The last man to have his hands on me raped me til I bled. And he made me want it, Curran. They gave me this Fey drug that made me want them, made me climax for them. Now...when anyone else touches me...it's him that does it."

My gaze suddenly cleared, and the world sharpened into focus. I snapped my eyes up to his.

"Please, Curran. I can't do this by myself. Please don't make me walk through another day waiting to be attacked. It's bad for all of us, and I can't do it. What if I hurt someone? I don't know of any other way to not hurt someone than to have you take it away. And you are the only one who can." I looked down again, afraid of his reaction.

He rumbled a little, deep in his throat. "Kate…"

He turned my face back to look him eyes that glowed. "Are you sure that this is what you want? Are you asking me to just be a body you can trust, or is this some sick way you think you can repay me?"  
He wasn't angry, wasn't accusing. I got the feeling that he just wanted clarification. His tone was inquisitive, and his eyes were deadly serious.

"I trust you, Curran. And I care about you. You are, I think, the only person who could ever replace it. Not just make it go away, but completely eradicate and replace it." I reached for him.

"Please."

"I want you to sleep on it. Alright? I want you to wait."

My heart sank. "You don't want me anymore…"

"NO! Kate-No." His hands came up to cup my face between them, and he placed the gentlest of kisses upon my lips.

"I want you. I have always wanted you. The things you do to me-I am even attracted to the way you piss me off. But, baby, not like this. Take tonight, and tomorrow, I will do whatever you need or want from me. But not like this, when you are drugged and hurting. For tonight, Kate, just let me hold you."

I was convinced. I nodded, and my focus slipped, and the world suddenly seemed like it was falling. I let him maneuver me on the bed, lay down behind me, and pull me to him. He was warm and strong behind me an when I curled into him, he ran fingers through my hair and pressed a kiss to my brow. I fell asleep with him massaging my scalp.

_****Serious smut warning for the next chapter, kay? Whadja think so far?****_


	7. Chapter 7

**Right. Back from hiatus to prepare for the season Finale.**

**Sorry I haven't written in so long, but college, family, and general life got in the way of my creative fingers and the writing version of cock-blocking. I apologize with a long chapter.**

**Before we get to the good stuff, big loves to my boon companion and stress reducing sister, JazMich. If anya yous are in the Stephanie Plum Fandom, you should check her stuff. It makes me happy.**

**Lyrics aren't mine, they come from DragonForce's Last Man Standing, and Red's Forever and Love will Leave a Mark**

**Right-o. Here Goes.**

Healing.

I got out of bed and pulled my clothes and boots on in the light of morning time the next day. As was becoming per usual, I was alone, with only a lingering warmth and scent on the other side of the bed. I rolled the kinks out of my neck and shoulders, and stepped through the door into the living room, where Derek was waiting on the couch, a tray of food off to the side.

"Morning, Kate."

"Hey, Derek."

He regarded me with brown eyes that rarely ever warmed anymore. "You look better."

I nodded in agreement and went for the food. "You eat?" I asked him.

"You don't still have to look after me, Kate. You aren't my mom."

"Nope. I'm your crazy aunt, and I recently got crazier. You eat?"  
"Yes, Kate, I ate. I just meant that you can let us take care of you for once, you know?"

I shot him a look, and he laughed at me. "Yeah. I can't really see that happening either. Still, though. Yesterday was pretty brutal."

I looked down at my bacon and eggs. "I liked it better when we exchanged a terse nod in the hallway and you pretended you weren't following me around."

He smiled lazily. "Did I do that?"

"You do when you're pretending to be Jim. Which you should give up on, by the way. The man has more creeper and paranoid in his left hand than the entirety of the Pack has in it's collective being."

We exchanged more small talk until I couldn't stall anymore without admitting to myself that I was stalling, so I stood up, and looked down at my werewolf sidekick. "I'm assuming you have orders regarding my whereabouts."

He followed me to his feet. "Only if you haven't changed your mind, Curran says."

"Where is he?" I asked, wondering why he wasn't here, and why he'd sent our boy-wonder.

Derek shrugged. "He's plotting something. With my gigantic powers of deduction, I'm guessing it has something to do with yesterday."  
"No mystery how you got on Security duties, powers like that. Derek?"  
"Yeah?"

"Does Julie know?"

"Nope." He led me out the door and down Curran's hallway. "We sent guards up there to watch her when we couldn't find you or Sarah, but she doesn't know that they're there, and we figured she'd rest easier not knowing after we did find you.''

He led me to a door I hadn't previously noticed and opened it. From what I could see, it was pretty sparse, even for the Keep, which generally embodied all things utilitarian castle. I turned to go in, but Derek stopped me before I could.

"Kate?"

I turned back, and he wrapped his long arms around me in a tight, really uncharacteristic hug. "You're the best big sister, or crazy aunt, an extremely fucked up wolf could ever have. I love you, okay? No matter what."

I squeezed back. "Love you too, kiddo." I pulled away, and we both pretended I didn't have tears in my eyes. We were badasses like that. I stepped into the room and let him lock me in.

I felt the edgings of fear creep across my skin when I saw a pair of manacles attached to the wall that had previously been out of my line of sight into the room. I rubbed my bare arms in an attempt to smooth away the gooseflesh. What was the Beast Lord planning?

The fear climbed higher and panic darkened the corner of my vision as my mind ran straight back to that dungeon. He wouldn't do that to me. Would he? Not Curran. No. He was crazy, not cruel, and I was pretty sure he loved me, in his way. I knew all this-I knew it. But all that knowing didn't do a damn thing to make the panic attack clutching at my chest let go. I was at the point of gasping when Curran stepped through another door I hadn't seen. My panic flew away when I saw him, those grey eyes serious and fixed on mine. He had a bunch of...crap. In his arms, which he dumped on the floor before walking towards me, only stopping when he was so close that if I'd taken a deep breath, we'd be touching. His hand cupped my cheek, and with his touch, I was okay.

"All you have to do is say no." His voice rumbled softly, like the faintest beginnings of thunder. "If you ask me to stop, I won't. Tell me 'don't', and I will. But if you tell me 'no', at anytime, I'll stop, and you can tell me what you need from there. Okay?"

I looked at him, and him at me.

I had always trusted Curran to do the right thing.

I had always trusted Curran.

**Light the path for the journey home, save a prayer for the lost alone.**

**Find a way from the other side, before the hero stands…**

Curran.

"Okay?" I asked her. Her dark, almond shaped eyes regarded me somewhat warily, and slowly, she nodded.

Something washed through me. Relief? More of an easing of a worry I didn't know I had. Inwardly, I prepared myself. This was going to be somewhat touchy, but if I managed it, if I did this correctly, she'd stop flinching when someone other than me touched. Or at least, she'd stop flashing back, and trying to kill whomever was standing nearest to her. My hand moved from her cheek to the back of her neck, and I pulled her closer so my lips could brush hers. She still tasted of bacon, and I smiled against her lips. She made a tiny whimper when I pulled back and took her hand, but said nothing. I led her to the wall, and brought her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss to her palm before I fastened the manacle around it. He fingers were shaking when I did the same with the other hand. I heard her gasp when I turned from her then, and headed for the pile of stuff I dropped. I retrieved the knife I brought with me-one of hers, the hilt wrapped in leather, the blade painted black. I'd sent Raphael to her apartment to grab her weapons- at least the ones she used regularly. It would take a moving truck to gather _all_ of her weapons.

It was one of her smaller ones, known as a Little Sister. It was tiny, with a terrifyingly keen edge. I could just use one of my claws for this, but the knife was better.

I unsheathed it, and held it up for her to see, and dropped the nylon sheath to the floor by our feet. I took the collar of her t-shirt between my fingers, and gently tugged the knife through it. I was moving slowly, so the she could see and anticipate my every motion. I thought perhaps it would keep her from getting too uncomfortable. When the front of her shirt had a slash the whole way down, I pressed the hilt to her fingers. When she took it from me, I moved my hands the the flaps of her shirt, and lowered my head to her neck. I kissed my way from her ear, down her neck and across her collarbone. I alternated my kisses with tiny, nipping bites that made her twitch electrifyingly under me, and moved my way down. Soon, I had to kneel because I couldn't bend my head lower. Slowly, y, I parted her shirt and kissed a narrow trail from her collar to her jeans, brushing lightly over the swell of her breast, and down over the strong plane of her belly, then back up. She was trembling quietly under me as I stood.

When I gained my feet, she looked up at me, lips parted and breathing a little harder than normal. I couldn't quite rein myself in so much and I bent quickly to take her mouth with mine, harder now, and her tongue met mine when I delved deeper. My hands lifted to bury in her hair and had to settle for smoothing over her tightly woven braid. After a few moments of this, I pulled back, catching her eyes, and caressing her face. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, and pulled her braid over her shoulder, and proceeded to unravel it so that her deep brown hair tumbled over her shoulders.

I took the knife back from her, and proceeded to divest her of the rest of her shirt and with it, her bra. She was standing before me, clad only in her jeans and that gorgeous hair, and I loved every inch of her. Her skin was a pale golden, and I swear she glowed.

She was mine.

**But you chased me down and broke in just when I was done believing**

**Spun me 'round so close now, I can feel you breathing…**

Inflamed.

He just stood there now, looking at me, breathing through his nose just a little faster than normal. His eyes were tinged with gold, and I felt it in my belly.

I could feel it now, the difference between real arousal, and that drug. Tiny gods, but I felt it. It burned low with in me, and the heat was rising.

I had started to feel worried again when he turned away from me, worried that he would leave me here. But he came back with a tiny knife, one of mine. It was from a set of four, and one of my favorites. And somehow, the fact that he was using one of my own knives to undress me was incredibly erotic.

He moved so slowly. If I had ever had doubts about the patience of lions, it was gone now. The man moved with glacial patience, and it was frustrating me. Which, I supposed was much better than scaring me. But **still**.

I wanted him to come back, and he was just standing there, staring at me. He couldn't even **see** the good bits through my hair and jeans. I licked my lips a little, to get even a little friction, and that Alpha gold rolling over his eyes was the only reaction-but it was a hell of a reaction.

He stepped closer again after an agonizing moment, and his hands smoothed lightly over my bare waist, sending shivers through me, and he smiled a pleased little smile. Those big, gentle hands moved up and over, brushing away my hair, so that those hands had free access to my breasts. His thumbs rubbed over my hardening nipples and traveled higher to sweep under my collar bones and back down. I felt my entire body quake under his touch, and my eyes drifted closed. My hands twitched in their cuffs. I wanted to touch him so badly, wanted to run my hands over his hair, and across those broad shoulders. My head fell back to thump against the wall when I felt a warmth close over my breast and I arched into him, desperate for more.

He gave it to me.

Eventually, he knelt at my feet and picked up my little knife from where he'd dropped it. He set it to the right cuff of my jeans and carefully dragged it upwards. The wait was tortuous-he went so slowly, and I was waaay past any hang-ups I'd ever had. The only thing I could think of was his touch on my skin, his mouth on mine. He stopped short of tearing the waistband and moved to the other side. He was taking pains not to let any part of himself touch any part of me and it was pissing me off. He once again stopped just short of actually removing my jeans, and picked up the sheath. It was only after he tossed the sheathed Little Sister back to the pile near the door that he turned back to me. Still kneeling on the floor, he looked up at me and smiled. It was a shit eating little grin, and he lifted his hands to my waist… and tore apart the little bit still holding my jeans up.

His hands skimmed down from there, and rested at my ankles. He lifted my foot and kissed his way up my leg, licking behind my knee before traveling up my outer thigh. He trailed kisses up my hip and over the waistband of my panties, pausing to flick the little blue bow. "Still no barbed wire?" He grinned up at me.

"I'm not trying to keep you out." I smiled back.

"That you are not."

He continued his ministrations back down the other leg, and I was shuddering by the time he took his mouth away.

"Curran." I breathed.

"I know, baby. "

The bastard was still fully clothed. He couldn't possibly know. Those hands traveled back up, and hesitated for a second before dragging my panties down my hips with _agonizing_ slowness. At his nudging I stepped out, and didn't protest when he spread my feet apart. His fingers tickled my inner thighs, then higher, until one long finger slicked through my folds and I couldn't repress a whimper at the feel of him there.

He toyed with me, his mouth playing eroticly over my belly, his fingers barely touching me, until I was dragging in breath after ragged breath.

Only after I was begging did he kiss me _there_, lapping loving at me like the great big cat he was. And, gods, it was delicious. Soon, too soon, I was quaking, shuddering. It was too much, and I couldn't take the sensory overload. I broke under him, and sagged in his grasp. He held me then, his face pressed to my belly, the top of his head brushing my breasts, until my body calm. When I could feasibly hold myself up, he stood, a decided smugness in his eyes, and he plucked the key to the manacles from where it hung on a string over my head. He released one hand, and I snaked it around his waist, laying my head on his broad chest. I held him close when he released the other cuff and his hands curved around me in return. He bent to kiss me then, slow and deep and wonderful. I've said before, and will again-the Beast Lord is a hell of a kisser.

He left me for a moment to come back with a blanket from his pile. I didn't know what else he had there, and didn't really care.

He padded back to wrap me in the soft fabric, and I looked up at him. There was hunger in those glowing eyes when I whispered, "Take me to bed, Your Fuzziness."

Evidently he couldn't wait for the bed, because after taking my mouth in a heady onslaught, he lowered me gently to the floor, and began again.

**Twisting, tearing apart, Holding me together**

**Changing every thought, Haunting me forever**

**Always inside**

…

**Okeydoky. So...my first smut. Whadja think, peoples?**

**Also, this may be the last Chapter, because I have a HUGE English paper to (start) finish before finals. If I get that done in a timely manner, I'll be back, but.**

**Thank you all for your support of my first public fanfic, and I wish you the best!**


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